Sweet Details On The Boston Wine Festival

Artistic labels. Old World versus New World vintages. Celebrity-endorsed wineries. For the next two months, oenophiles will converge at the Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star Boston Harbor Hotel to taste-test the world’s best wines, dine on the city‘s flavorful food and meet with vintners from Napa Valley to New Zealand.

Boston Harbor Hotel’s 24th annual Boston Wine Festival kicked off on January 11 with a special reception hosted by the hotel’s executive chef, Daniel Bruce. The 12-week series (one of the country’s longest-running wine festivals) features themed brunches, wine tastings and dinners. According to past reports, more than 90,000 bottles of wine are opened for tastings throughout the event.

This year’s wineries include Diamond Creek Vineyards, Ferrari-Carano Vineyards & Winery, Opus One, Cakebread Cellars, Frog’s Leap and many more. Themed dinners — which always seem to sell out first — include the popular “Battle of the Cabernets,” “Meritage Madness” and the introduction of a new one, “Pinots: Old World, New World.”

Chef Bruce selects and invites each winery partner for the Boston Wine Festival and is at the helm of pairing food and wine for each event. At the grand-opening gala on January 11, Bruce laid out a spread for more than 300 people that included lobster pastries, crab claws, braised beef short ribs, truffled risotto, oysters on the half-shell and an endless variety of cheeses from countries around the world.

As guests sipped their way through the tastings — which featured varietals from vineyards including Frog’s Leap, Ramey and Châteauneuf-du-Pape — a jazz trio played in the corner of the hotel’s Wharf Room overlooking Boston Harbor.

To help complement the wine experience, the Spa at Rowes Wharf will feature signature vino-based treatments, and Boston Harbor Hotel is offering festival ticket holders a special rate of $220 a night.